HARÛT AND MARÛT
After Lord Ragnall had seen his guests to the door in the old-fashioned
manner, he returned and asked me if I played cards, or whether I
preferred music. I was assuring him that I hated the sight of a card
when Mr. Savage appeared in his silent way and respectfully inquired of
his lordship whether any gentleman was staying in the house whose
Christian name was _Here-come-a-zany_. Lord Ragnall looked at him with
a searching eye as though he suspected him of being drunk, and then
asked what he meant by such a ridiculous question.
“I mean, my lord,” replied Mr. Savage with a touch of offence in his
tone, “that two foreign individuals in white clothes have arrived at
the castle, stating that they wish to speak at once with a _Mr.
Here-come-a-zany_ who is staying here. I told them to go away as the
butler said he could make nothing of their talk, but they only sat down
in the snow and said they would wait for _Here-come-a-zany_.”
“Then you had better put them in the old guardroom, lock them up with
something to eat, and send the stable-boy for the policeman, who is a
zany if ever anybody was. I expect they are after the pheasants.”
“Stop a bit,” I said, for an idea had occurred to me. “The message may
be meant for me, though I can’t conceive who sent it. My native name is
Macumazana, which possibly Mr. Savage has not caught quite correctly.
Shall I go to see these men?”
“I wouldn’t do that in this cold, Quatermain,” Lord Ragnall answered.
“Did they say what they are, Savage?”
“I made out that they were conjurers, my lord. At least when I told
them to go away one of them said, ‘You will go first, gentleman.’ Then,
my lord, I heard a hissing sound in my coat-tail pocket and, putting my
hand into it, I found a large snake which dropped on the ground and
vanished. It quite paralysed me, my lord, and while I stood there
wondering whether I was bitten, a mouse jumped out of the kitchenmaid’s
hair. She had been laughing at their dress, my lord, but _now_ she’s
screaming in hysterics.”
The solemn aspect of Mr. Savage as he narrated these unholy marvels was
such that, like the kitchenmaid, we both burst into ill-timed
merriment. Attracted by our laughter, Miss Holmes, Miss Manners, with
whom she was talking, and some of the other guests, approached and
asked what was the matter.
“Savage here declares that there are two conjurers in the kitchen
premises, who have been producing snakes out of his pocket and mice
from the hair of one of the maids, and who want to see Mr. Quatermain,”
Lord Ragnall answered.
“Conjurers! Oh, do have them in, George,” exclaimed Miss Holmes; while
Miss Manners and the others, who were getting a little tired of
promiscuous conversation, echoed her request.
“By all means,” he answered, “though we have enough mice here without
their bringing any more. Savage, go and tell your two friends that _Mr.
Here-come-a-zany_ is waiting for them in the drawing-room, and that the
company would like to see some of their tricks.”
Savage bowed and departed, like a hero to execution, for by his pallor
I could see that he was in a great fright. When he had gone we set to
work and cleared a space in the middle of the room, in front of which
we arranged chairs for the company to sit on.
“No doubt they are Indian jugglers,” said Lord Ragnall, “and will want
a place to grow their mango-tree, as I remember seeing them do in
Kashmir.”
As he spoke the door opened and Mr. Savage appeared through it, walking
much faster than was his wont. I noted also that he gripped the pockets
of his swallow-tail coat firmly in his hand.
“Mr. Hare-root and Mr. Mare-root,” he announced.
“Hare-root and Mare-root!” repeated Lord Ragnall.
“Harût and Marût, I expect,” I said. “I think I have read somewhere
that they were great magicians, whose names these conjurers have
taken.” (Since then I have discovered that they are mentioned in the
Koran as masters of the Black Art.)
A moment later two men followed him through the doorway. The first was
a tall, Eastern-looking person with a grave countenance, a long, white
beard, a hooked nose, and flashing, hawk-like eyes. The second was
shorter and rather stout, also much younger. He had a genial, smiling
face, small, beady-black eyes, and was clean-shaven. They were very
light in colour; indeed I have seen Italians who are much darker; and
there was about their whole aspect a certain air of power.
Instantly I remembered the story that Miss Holmes had told me at dinner
and looked at her covertly, to see that she had turned quite pale and
was trembling a little. I do not think that anyone else noticed this,
however, as all were staring at the strangers. Moreover she recovered
herself in a moment, and, catching my eye, laid her finger on her lips
in token of silence.
The men were clothed in thick, fur-lined cloaks, which they took off
and, folding them neatly, laid upon the floor, standing revealed in
robes of a beautiful whiteness and in large plain turbans, also white.
“High-class Somali Arabs,” thought I to myself, noting the while that
as they arranged the robes they were taking in every one of us with
their quick eyes. One of them shut the door, leaving Savage on this
side of it as though they meant him to be present. Then they walked
towards us, each of them carrying an ornamental basket made apparently
of split reeds, that contained doubtless their conjuring outfit and
probably the snake which Savage had found in his pocket. To my surprise
they came straight to me, and, having set down the baskets, lifted
their hands above their heads, as a person about to dive might do, and
bowed till the points of their fingers touched the floor. Next they
spoke, not in Arabic as I had expected that they would, but in Bantu,
which of course I understood perfectly well.
“I, Harût, head priest and doctor of the White Kendah People, greet
you, O Macumazana,” said the elder man.
“I, Marût, a priest and doctor of the People of the White Kendah, greet
you, O Watcher-by-night, whom we have travelled far to find,” said the
younger man. Then together,
“We both greet you, O Lord, who seem small but are great, O Chief with
a troubled past and with a mighty future, O Beloved of Mameena who has
‘gone down’ but still speaks from beneath, Mameena who was and is of
our company.”
At this point it was my turn to shiver and become pale, as any may
guess who may have chanced to read the history of Mameena, and the turn
of Miss Holmes to watch _me_ with animated interest.
“O Slayer of evil men and beasts!” they went on, in their rich-voiced,
monotonous chant, “who, as our magic tells us, are destined to deliver
our land from the terrible scourge, we greet you, we bow before you, we
acknowledge you as our lord and brother, to whom we vow safety among us
and in the desert, to whom we promise a great reward.”
Again they bowed, once, twice, thrice; then stood silent before me with
folded arms.
“What on earth are they saying?” asked Scroope. “I could catch a few
words”—he knew a little kitchen Zulu—“but not much.”
I told him briefly while the others listened.
“What does Mameena mean?” asked Miss Holmes, with a horrible acuteness.
“Is it a woman’s name?”
Hearing her, Harût and Marût bowed as though doing reverence to that
name. I am sorry to say that at this point I grew confused, though
really there was no reason why I should, and muttered something about a
native girl who had made trouble in her day.
Miss Holmes and the other ladies looked at me with amused disbelief,
and to my dismay the venerable Harût turned to Miss Holmes, and with
his inevitable bow, said in broken English:
“Mameena very beautiful woman, perhaps more beautiful than you, lady.
Mameena love the white lord Macumazana. She love him while she live,
she love him now she dead. She tell me so again just now. You ask white
lord tell you pretty story of how he kiss her before she kill herself.”
Needless to say all this very misleading information was received by
the audience with an attention that I can but call rapt, and in a kind
of holy silence which was broken only by a sudden burst of sniggering
on the part of Scroope. I favoured him with my fiercest frown. Then I
fell upon that venerable villain Harût, and belaboured him in Bantu,
while the audience listened as intently as though they understood.
I asked him what he meant by coming here to asperse my character. I
asked him who the deuce he was. I asked him how he came to know
anything about Mameena, and finally I told him that soon or late I
would be even with him, and paused exhausted.
He stood there looking for all the world like a statue of the patriarch
Job as I imagine him, and when I had done, replied without moving a
muscle and in English:
“O Lord, Zikali, Zulu wizard, friend of mine! All great wizard friend
just like all elephant and all snake. Zikali make me know Mameena, and
she tell me story and send you much love, and say she wait for you
always.” (More sniggers from Scroope, and still intenser interest
evinced by Miss Holmes and others.) “If you like, I show you Mameena
‘fore I go.” (Murmurs from Miss Holmes and Miss Manners of “Oh,
_please_ do!”) “But that very little business, for what one long-ago
lady out of so many?”
Then suddenly he broke into Bantu, and added: “A jest is a jest,
Macumazana, though often there is meaning in a jest, and you shall see
Mameena if you will. I come here to ask you to do my people a service
for which you shall not lack reward. We, the White Kendah, the People
of the Child, are at war with the Black Kendah, our subjects who
outnumber us. The Black Kendah have an evil spirit for a god, which
spirit from the beginning has dwelt in the largest elephant in all the
world, a beast that none can kill, but which kills many and bewitches
more. While that elephant, which is named Jana, lives we, the People of
the Child, go in terror, for day by day it destroys us. We have
learned—how it does not matter—that you alone can kill that elephant.
If you will come and kill it, we will show you the place where all the
elephants go to die, and you shall take their ivory, many wagon-loads,
and grow rich. Soon you are going on a journey that has to do with a
flower, and you will visit peoples named the Mazitu and the Pongo who
live on an island in a lake. Far beyond the Pongo and across the desert
dwell my people, the Kendah, in a secret land. When you wish to visit
us, as you will do, journey to the north of that lake where the Pongo
dwell, and stay there on the edge of the desert shooting till we come.
Now mock me if you will, but do not forget, for these things shall
befall in their season, though that time be far. If we meet no more for
a while, still do not forget. When you have need of gold or of the
ivory that is gold, then journey to the north of the lake where the
Pongo dwell, and call on the names of Harût and Marût.”
“And call on the names of Harût and Marût,” repeated the younger man,
who hitherto appeared to take no interest in our talk.
Next, before I could answer, before I could think the thing out indeed,
for all this breath from savage and mystical Africa blowing on me
suddenly here in an Essex drawing-room, seemed to overwhelm me, the
ineffable Harût proceeded in his English conjurer’s patter:
“Rich ladies and gentlemen want see trick by poor old wizard from
centre Africa. Well, we show them, but please ‘member no magic, all
quite simple trick. Teach it you if you pay. Please not look too hard,
no want you learn how it done. What you like see? Tree grow out of
nothing, eh? Good! Please lend me that plate—what you call him—china.”
Then the performance began. The tree grew admirably upon the china
plate under the cover of an antimacassar. A number of bits of stick
danced together on the said plate, apparently without being touched. At
a whistle from Marût a second snake crawled out of the pocket of the
horrified Mr. Savage, who stood observing these proceedings at a
respectful distance, erected itself on its tail upon the plate and took
fire till it was consumed to ashes, and so forth.
The show was very good, but to tell the truth I did not take much
notice of it, for I had seen similar things before and was engaged in
thoughts much excited by what Harût had said to me. At length the pair
paused amidst the clapping of the audience, and Marût began to pack up
the properties as though all were done. Then Harût observed casually:
“The Lord Macumazana think this poor business and he right. Very poor
business, any conjurer do better. All common trick”—here his eye fell
upon Mr. Savage who was wriggling uneasily in the background. “What
matter with that gentleman? Brother Marût, go see.”
Brother Marût went and freed Mr. Savage from two more snakes which
seemed to have taken possession of various parts of his garments. Also,
amidst shouts of laughter, from a large dead rat which he appeared to
draw from his well-oiled hair.
“Ah!” said Harût, as his confederate returned with these prizes,
leaving Savage collapsed in a chair, “snake love that gentleman much.
He earn great money in Africa. Well, he keep rat in hair; hungry snake
always want rat. But as I say, this poor business. Now you like to see
some better, eh? Mameena, eh?”
“No,” I replied firmly, whereat everyone laughed.
“Elephant Jana we want you kill, eh? Just as he look this minute.”
“Yes,” I said, “very much indeed, only how will you show it me?”
“That quite easy, Macumazana. You just smoke little Kendah ‘bacco and
see many things, if you have gift, as I _think_ you got, and as I
almost _sure_ that lady got,” and he pointed to Miss Holmes. “Sometimes
they things people want see, and sometimes they things people not want
see.”
“Dakka,” I said contemptuously, alluding to the Indian hemp on which
natives make themselves drunk throughout great districts of Africa.
“Oh! no, not dakka, that common stuff; this ‘bacco much better than
dakka, only grow in Kendah-land. You think all nonsense? Well, you see.
Give me match please.”
Then while we watched he placed some tobacco, at least it looked like
tobacco, in a little wooden bowl that he also produced from his basket.
Next he said something to his companion, Marût, who drew a flute from
his robe made out of a thick reed, and began to play on it a wild and
melancholy music, the sound of which seemed to affect my backbone as
standing on a great height often does. Presently too Harût broke into a
low song whereof I could not understand a word, that rose and fell with
the music of the flute. Now he struck a match, which seemed incongruous
in the midst of this semi-magical ceremony, and taking a pinch of the
tobacco, lit it and dropped it among the rest. A pale, blue smoke arose
from the bowl and with it a very sweet odour not unlike that of the
tuberoses gardeners grow in hot-houses, but more searching.
“Now you breathe smoke, Macumazana,” he said, “and tell us what you
see. Oh! no fear, that not hurt you. Just like cigarette. Look,” and he
inhaled some of the vapour and blew it out through his nostrils, after
which his face seemed to change to me, though what the change was I
could not define.
I hesitated till Scroope said:
“Come, Allan, don’t shirk this Central African adventure. I’ll try if
you like.”
“No,” said Harût brusquely, “_you_ no good.”
Then curiosity and perhaps the fear of being laughed at overcame me. I
took the bowl and held it under my nose, while Harût threw over my head
the antimacassar which he had used in the mango trick, to keep in the
fumes I suppose.
At first these fumes were unpleasant, but just as I was about to drop
the bowl they seemed to become agreeable and to penetrate to the inmost
recesses of my being. The general effect of them was not unlike that of
the laughing gas which dentists give, with this difference, that
whereas the gas produces insensibility, these fumes seemed to set the
mind on fire and to burn away all limitations of time and distance.
Things shifted before me. It was as though I were no longer in that
room but travelling with inconceivable rapidity.
Suddenly I appeared to stop before a curtain of mist. The mist rolled
up in front of me and I saw a wild and wonderful scene. There lay a
lake surrounded by dense African forest. The sky above was still red
with the last lights of sunset and in it floated the full moon. On the
eastern side of the lake was a great open space where nothing seemed to
grow and all about this space were the skeletons of hundreds of dead
elephants. There they lay, some of them almost covered with grey mosses
hanging to their bones, through which their yellow tusks projected as
though they had been dead for centuries; others with the rotting hide
still on them. I knew that I was looking on a cemetery of elephants,
the place where these great beasts went to die, as I have since been
told the extinct moas did in New Zealand. All my life as a hunter had I
heard rumours of these cemeteries, but never before did I see such a
spot even in a dream.
See! There was one dying now, a huge gaunt bull that looked as though
it were several hundred years old. It stood there swaying to and fro.
Then it lifted its trunk, I suppose to trumpet, though of course I
could hear nothing, and slowly sank upon its knees and so remained in
the last relaxation of death.
Almost in the centre of this cemetery was a little mound of
water-washed rock that had endured when the rest of the stony plain was
denuded in past epochs. Suddenly upon that rock appeared the shape of
the most gigantic elephant that ever I beheld in all my long
experience. It had one enormous tusk, but the other was deformed and
broken off short. Its sides were scarred as though with fighting and
its eyes shone red and wickedly. Held in its trunk was the body of a
woman whose hair hung down upon one side and whose feet hung down upon
the other. Clasped in her arms was a child that seemed to be still
living.
The rogue, as a brute of this sort is called, for evidently such it
was, dropped the corpse to the ground and stood a while, flapping its
ears. Then it felt for and picked up the child with its trunk, swung it
to and fro and finally tossed it high into the air, hurling it far
away. After this it walked to the elephant that I had just seen die,
and charged the carcass, knocking it over. Then having lifted its trunk
as though to trumpet in triumph, it shambled off towards the forest and
vanished.
The curtain of mist fell again and in it, dimly, I thought I saw—well,
never mind who or what I saw. Then I awoke.
“Well, did you see anything?” asked a chorus of voices.
I told them what I had seen, leaving out the last part.
“I say, old fellow,” said Scroope, “you must have been pretty clever to
get all that in, for your eyes weren’t shut for more than ten seconds.”
“Then I wonder what you would say if I repeated everything,” I
answered, for I still felt dreamy and not quite myself.
“You see elephant Jana?” asked Harût. “He kill woman and child, eh?
Well, he do that every night. Well, that why people of White Kendah
want you to kill _him_ and take all that ivory which they no dare touch
because it in holy place and Black Kendah not let them. So he live
still. That what we wish know. Thank you much, Macumazana. You very
good look-through-distance man. Just what I think. Kendah ‘bacco smoke
work very well in you. Now, beautiful lady,” he added turning to Miss
Holmes, “you like look too? Better look. Who knows what you see?”
Miss Holmes hesitated a moment, studying me with an inquiring eye. But
I made no sign, being in truth very curious to hear _her_ experience.
“Yes,” she said.
“I would prefer, Luna, that you left this business alone,” remarked
Lord Ragnall uneasily. “I think it is time that you ladies went to
bed.”
“Here is a match,” said Miss Holmes to Harût who was engaged in putting
more tobacco into the bowl, the suspicion of a smile upon his grave and
statuesque countenance. Harût received the match with a low bow and
fired the stuff as before. Then he handed the bowl, from which once
again the blue smoke curled upwards, to Miss Holmes, and gently and
gracefully let the antimacassar fall over it and her head, which it
draped as a wedding veil might do. A few seconds later she threw off
the antimacassar and cast the bowl, in which the fire was now out, on
to the floor. Then she stood up with wide eyes, looking wondrous lovely
and, notwithstanding her lack of height, majestic.
“I have been in another world,” she said in a low voice as though she
spoke to the air, “I have travelled a great way. I found myself in a
small place made of stone. It was dark in the place, the fire in that
bowl lit it up. There was nothing there except a beautiful statue of a
naked baby which seemed to be carved in yellow ivory, and a chair made
of ebony inlaid with ivory and seated with string. I stood in front of
the statue of the Ivory Child. It seemed to come to life and smile at
me. Round its neck was a string of red stones. It took them from its
neck and set them upon mine. Then it pointed to the chair, and I sat
down in the chair. That was all.”
Harût followed her words with an interest that I could see was intense,
although he attempted to hide it. Then he asked me to translate them,
which I did.
As their full sense came home to him, although his face remained
impassive, I saw his dark eyes shine with the light of triumph.
Moreover I heard him whisper to Marût words that seemed to mean,
“The Sacred Child accepts the Guardian. The Spirit of the White Kendah
finds a voice again.”
Then as though involuntarily, but with the utmost reverence, both of
them bowed deeply towards Miss Holmes.
A babel of conversation broke out.
“What a ridiculous dream,” I heard Lord Ragnall say in a vexed voice.
“An ivory child that seemed to come to life and to give you a necklace.
Whoever heard such nonsense?”
“Whoever heard such nonsense?” repeated Miss Holmes after him, as
though in polite acquiescence, but speaking as an automaton might
speak.
“I say,” interrupted Scroope, addressing Miss Manners, “this is a
drawing-room entertainment and a half, isn’t it, dear?”
“I don’t know,” answered Miss Manners, doubtfully, “it is rather too
queer for my taste. Tricks are all very well, but when it comes to
magic and visions I get frightened.”
“Well, I suppose the show is over,” said Lord Ragnall. “Quatermain,
would you mind asking your conjurer friends what I owe them?”
Here Harût, who had understood, paused from packing up his properties
and answered,
“Nothing, O great Lord, nothing. It is we owe you much. Here we learn
what we want know long time. I mean if elephant Jana still kill people
of Kendah. Kendah ‘bacco no speak to us. Only speak to new spirit. You
got great gift, lady, and you too, Macumazana. You not like smoke more
Kendah ‘bacco and look into past, eh? Better look! Very full, past,
learn much there about all us; learn how things begin. Make you
understand lot what seem odd to-day. No! Well, one day you look p’raps,
‘cause past pull hard and call loud, only no one hear what it say. Good
night, O great Lord. Good night, O beautiful lady. Good night, O
Macumazana, till we meet again when you come kill elephant Jana.
Blessing of the Heaven-Child, who give rain, who protect all danger,
who give food, who give health, on you all.”
Then making many obeisances they walked backwards to the door where
they put on their long cloaks.
At a sign from Lord Ragnall I accompanied them, an office which,
fearing more snakes, Mr. Savage was very glad to resign to me.
Presently we stood outside the house amidst the moaning trees, and very
cold it was there.
“What does all this mean, O men of Africa?” I asked.
“Answer the question yourself when you stand face to face with the
great elephant Jana that has in it an evil spirit, O Macumazana,”
replied Harût. “Nay, listen. We are far from our home and we sought
tidings through those who could give it to us, and we have won those
tidings, that is all. We are worshippers of the Heavenly Child that is
eternal youth and all good things, but of late the Child has lacked a
tongue. Yet to-night it spoke again. Seek to know no more, you who in
due season will know all things.”
“Seek to know no more,” echoed Marût, “who already, perhaps, know too
much, lest harm should come to you, Macumazana.”
“Where are you going to sleep to-night?” I asked.
“We do not sleep here,” answered Harût, “we walk to the great city and
thence find our way to Africa, where we shall meet you again. You know
that we are no liars, common readers of thought and makers of tricks,
for did not Dogeetah, the wandering white man, speak to you of the
people of whom he had heard who worshipped the Child of Heaven? Go in,
Macumazana, ere you take harm in this horrible cold, and take with you
this as a marriage gift from the Child of Heaven whom she met to-night,
to the beautiful lady stamped with the sign of the young moon who is
about to marry the great lord she loves.”
Then he thrust a little linen-wrapped parcel into my hand and with his
companion vanished into the darkness.
I returned to the drawing-room where the others were still discussing
the remarkable performance of the two native conjurers.
“They have gone,” I said in answer to Lord Ragnall, “to walk to London
as they said. But they have sent a wedding-present to Miss Holmes,” and
I showed the parcel.
“Open it, Quatermain,” he said again.
“No, George,” interrupted Miss Holmes, laughing, for by now she seemed
to have quite recovered herself, “I like to open my own presents.”
He shrugged his shoulders and I handed her the parcel, which was neatly
sewn up. Somebody produced scissors and the stitches were cut. Within
the linen was a necklace of beautiful red stones, oval-shaped like
amber beads and of the size of a robin’s egg. They were roughly
polished and threaded on what I recognized at once to be hair from an
elephant’s tail. From certain indications I judged these stones, which
might have been spinels or carbuncles, or even rubies, to be very
ancient. Possibly they had once hung round the neck of some lady in old
Egypt. Indeed a beautiful little statuette, also of red stone, which
was suspended from the centre of the necklace, suggested that this was
so, for it may well have been a likeness of one of the great gods of
the Egyptians, the infant Horus, the son of Isis.
“That is the necklace I saw which the Ivory Child gave me in my dream,”
said Miss Holmes quietly.
Then with much deliberation she clasped it round her throat.